“I address my public apologies to Francesco Rocca”
First the serious charges, then the apologies and the case is closed. In Lazio, six days after the vote of 12 and 13 February, the electoral campaign becomes incandescent, controversies and accusations fly with threats of lawsuits. The story revolves around the Democratic Party candidate for the Lazio Regional Council, Sara Battisti, who yesterday during a rally in Aquino, in the province of Frosinone, pronounced “heavy” attacks – and then apologized – against the center-right candidate for the presidency of the Lazio Region, Francesco Rocca. For his part, the former president of the Red Cross accepted Battisti’s apology: “accident closed”.
A violent lunge that has no proof and that indicates the alleged links between Rocca and the circles of organized crime, which operates on the Roman coast. “Francesco Rocca is not a boy who has had a moment of fragility when the mother was sick. Francesco Rocca is linked to the Ostia clan that manages drug trafficking and for this reason he has deep ties with these mafia and illegal networks, which we fought on the Roman coast”, Battisti said.
The day after the statements made Battisti publicly apologized to Rocca: “In an electoral meeting held yesterday, in Aquino, in my speech I made offensive accusations that have no basis whatsoever of the candidate for president of the center-right, Francesco Rocca – declares Battisti -. We are divided by political ideas, we have diametrically opposed views on the future of our region, but that doesn’t justify the use of some of my statements, albeit in an excited moment one week before the vote. For this, I address my public apologies to Francesco Rocca ”, he concludes. He excuses that were enough to avoid a lawsuit. “I intended to denounce Battisti, but his public apology is enough – Rocca declares -. I believe and I want to hope that she too was a victim of the unjustified hate campaign against me, implemented since the beginning of my candidacy also by some press.
For me the incident is closed”, concludes the former president of the Red Cross. Even earlier, the vice president of the Chamber of Fd’I, Fabio Rampelli, in solidarity with Rocca. “After having managed the Lazio Region for 10 years, transforming it into an ‘affaropoli’, the Democratic Party, now in the last days of Pompeii, launches the latest shameful accusation against Francesco Rocca for which, however, he will answer in court”, thunders Rampelli. Rocca between 1990 and 2003 practiced the profession of lawyer. In the second half of the 1990s he was at the forefront of the fight against the mafia, for the defense of some pentiti, so much so that he lived under guard for 5 years. Then an expert in international emergencies, a role that brought him to the top of the Italian and international Red Cross, until his descent into the field as a candidate for the presidency of the Lazio Region.
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